The Best Present
by oakleaf
Summary: Mini-fill for an avengerkink prompt. Clint celebrates Phil's first birthday after the movie. He receives the best present at his. Light slash.


**A/N:** I've been posting a rather lot lately, haven't I? Don't expect this frequency for at least the next twenty-three weeks or so as I wrap up my secondary studies!

This is another fill for an avengerkink prompt, see bottom of fic.

**Warnings: **Movieverse, light slash

* * *

**The Best Present**

Clint always remembers Phil's birthday. It's in mid-summer and it's usually a nice, bright day.

It's usually a day when, wherever the man may be, someone throws a party.

There's a wide variety of big or small the celebration is. One year, he was at SHIELD HQ and just about all of the agents there attended a surprise party. Another year, it's just him and Clint on a surveillance mission, when Clint produces a small present and a cake.

There's always cake.

So this year it's no different.

It's only two weeks after the Battle for Manhattan when that time of year rolls around again.

He locks himself in his room until evening and the only person who makes it in is Natasha.

That evening, over a sombre dinner, Natasha brings out a small, paper cake.

Clint smiles sadly.

They go outside, onto the roof, and burn it, hoping the smoke will carry the cake – the sentiment – to Phil in heaven, even though neither believe in the afterlife.

* * *

Clint has only started regularly celebrating his birthday since he joined SHIELD. It's about a month after Phil's.

He's sent on a mission the week before it and arrives back at base the morning of his birthday – not that he remembers that it is – and notices that there seems to be a number of strange things.

1. The entire Avengers team is there.  
2. They seem to be happy about something.  
3. They seem to be sending him glances, as though he's meant to glean some hidden meaning from them.

He doesn't get it.

He pushes it from his mind for the moment as he attends his debrief and cleans himself up.

When evening comes around, Natasha comes and knocks on his door just as he's about to go down to the cafeteria. She leads him to a conference room.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLINT!"

The shout comes from five throats as soon as the door opens, but Thor's is one of them, so…

There's a small stack of presents on a table to the side and there's a giant paper banner hung across the room. There's also some food in front of him.

"Thanks, guys."

He's happy that the other Avengers have done this for him, but it does bring back bittersweet memories for him of the first time Phil threw him a party. He remembers sitting in his dorm after dinner and Phil coming in with a cake and a huge box covered in wrapping paper. Turns out the box was mostly empty, but there was a small book in the bottom, which he'd read again and again.

The cake was amazing though. When he asked the senior agent where he'd got it from, Phil had smiled and replied with, "it's my secret recipe".

He can't help think but today would be perfect if Phil were here.

"There's one more present for you," Natasha whispers into his ear and turns him around by the shoulder.

For a moment, the day is perfect.

Until he realises the impossibility of it all. How could Phil be standing in the doorway?

"This had better not be some sick joke," he snarls, turning back to his team.

"It's not." The supposedly dead agent's hand lands on Clint's shoulder.

"I thought…"

"Well, I'm not dead. Turns out Fury had some plan to give you a push since it was the last thing I said before I 'died'," he said, using air-quotes to show he hadn't actually.

"Prove it."

"I brought cake?"

He holds up a plastic bag, inside which is a chocolate cake.

The cake is cut and the moment Clint takes a bite, he knows Phil is back.

He flings his arms around the man, who is looking for a spark of acknowledgement from Clint to show that he knows that, yes, it is the real him.

Their lips meet and they don't part until they sorely need to breathe.

"I missed you," the archer mumbles into the older man's shoulder.

"I missed you too. Happy birthday, Clint."

* * *

_So, thanks to a horrible picture going around tumblr of Clint bringing a piece of birthday cake to Coulson's grave on his birthday (wokintomordor. tumblr post/ 26805535439/ amy-banner-justm3h-happy-birthday-phil), I want to request Phil to surprise Clint on his birthday by not being dead. Sexy times are not required, but are not discouraged.  
__+1 if there is cake  
__+10 if Clint doesn't believe Coulson is real for some reason IE, he always brings him cake on his birthday  
__+100 if Clint doesn't believe it's real until he tries the cake_

**A/N: **The end of the first section is based on the Chinese tradition of burning money for an ancestor's use in heaven.

Reviews are loved!


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